


hoping she'll find she's not alone

by sonia (aquatulip)



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Blood, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 14:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3533174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquatulip/pseuds/sonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>you find an innocence within mondo that shocks you to the core; why did he have to get involved?</p>
            </blockquote>





	hoping she'll find she's not alone

laughing; jeering, like a drunken mob who pull and push on one another, that’s when you see him the very first time and you wish to never see him again. his arm is haphazardly strung around the neck of a taller man who looks like him while others walk in synchrony together around them. anger swells in your chest: red hot, burning. jealousy draws blood from the palms of your hands as you dig your bitten down nails into your skin as they pass you. they have no need for you, no concern for the girl who is wedged between trash cans while blood stains the hem of her skirt. if only you could have such a carefree life, but instead you are pressed against the brick wall while there is an itching sting on your upper thigh. tears well and pour until the pool underneath you certainly must be equal parts blood and tears and snot; you feel disgusting, you look worse.

he returns to stoop down and pick up discarded keys. if you made any noise, he would find you and you’d have lots of explaining to do, so you hold your tongue and close your eyes as you will him to go away. _leave leave leave leave leave leave leave leave dammit leave._ as he departs again, you hiss after him. the pain in your leg makes you feel lightheaded as wetness seeps into the threads of the fabric of your skirt. if you look down, then you’ll surely faint, but you know that if you tried to walk back to your home, then you wouldn’t even make it halfway there. there’s a voice approaching you again as it yells something about taking a shortcut home. panic claws at your insides and you try to pull yourself up from the ground only to knock over the trashcan next to you. the man that your classmate had his arm around is standing there with a surprised look on his face as he stares at your unsightly form.

you bite down on your lip so hard that you taste blood. your gaze is thrown away from him as he crouches down in front of you and starts asking you questions that you don’t care to answer; he thinks you have been attacked and he tells the other boys with him to go back and that he’ll take you home, or to the hospital, wherever you want to go. you don’t owe him the truth, and you resist his generosity until you realize that if you do not go with him, then you will end up in the back of police car. so you climb onto his strong back and even as blood stains his white shirt, he remains unaffected and chatters excitedly to try to lift your mood. you wish you weren’t touching him, but you lean a cheek against his shoulder and instruct him where to go until he’s setting you down outside of your house and asking you again if you need to go to the hospital. you hate this: _leave leave leave just fucking leave_ , you turn away from him, mumbling a “th,thanks” before slipping into your home and shutting the door tightly behind you.

once inside, you breathe a sigh of relief.  
his smile looks like his brother’s.  
you don’t owe him anything.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

you can hear them talking as they lean against the fence next to their bikes; it is so casual that you shouldn’t worry, but you strain to listen as his brother points you out to him. anger boils in your veins at the sympathy that will rain down upon you, but you never asked for sympathy, and you don’t need it. you clutch your stack of books tighter to your chest and stare off into space as you try to pick the best way to the library without passing close enough for them to reach out to you and shower onto you questions about last night.

          “that’s her,” he says, “i took her home. she was all bloody, man. looks like someone knifed her. that’s playing pretty dirty.”  

          mondo makes a noise, grinding his teeth together in a frustration that you don’t understand; there is no reason for him to care about you or what happened to you last night. you are thankful that no one found the body that syo had strung up yet, because then you would have been in a world of trouble. syo doesn’t attack women, so you’d immediately seem suspicious with blood coating your clothing. “fucking pathetic,” he mumbles.

but you already know that you are.  
his words ring if your ears.  
 _fucking pathetic_.

.

 

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     your way to the library is usually free of passersby, so you do not have to walk at such an increased speed, but before you know it, you are being pushed against the side of the school building with a hand gripping your shoulder. the fingers dig into your tendons and you want to scream and kick, but you know the potential danger there. “what’s up, w-h-o-r-e?” the boy asks, tilting his head. _this is normal this is normal this is normal_.

_fucking pathetic._

     “n,no, l,let go,” you squirm uselessly and your books lay forgotten underneath you; the pages are being stained by the dirt and grime on the ground, but you only momentarily notice this before another man approaches you with a devilish grin that sends shivers up and down your spine violently. _this is normal_ , you brain reminds you. you haven’t seen them in weeks, but these boys are always there to remind you how worthless you are. last time you left unscathed with broken glasses, but this time there is a glazed look in their eyes as they lick their lips. you are their _prey_.

     “hey, ya could at least be _polite_ ,” one of them say, “your breath still fucking _stinks_ , are you ever gonna learn how to brush your teeth? if you aren’t gonna take care of them, how about we just pull them out for ya?”

     panic overwhelms and suffocates you; they wouldn’t harm you. all their threats are empty, but you are still anxious. predators grow bored of toying with their prey eventually, then they rip them apart. you have half a mind to scream, or faint, but you are still clinging to your consciousness as you are held up against the wall. “l,let go!” you repeat, fighting against the pressure, but the other boy strikes you with the back of his hand. that’s when you do yell out in shock. _pathetic pathetic pathetic pathetic pathetic i’m pathetic i deserve this._

pinned against the wall, you realize that you deserve this; your squirming ceases as you hang your head in shame. _fucking pathetic_ , you whisper to yourself. the feverish glint in the boy’s gaze goes cold though. you miss it with your own gaze thrown towards your feet, but with a groan, you are released by the boy as he stumbles away from you. he’s cradling his nose and mouth within his hands.

          “what the _fuck,”_ he spits blood and anger; you look away and close your eyes. all you can focus on is your breathing as you will yourself not to faint.

          the boy who had punched him cracks his knuckles and you recognize him as oowada mondo. why the oowada family has come to your rescue twice now, you don’t know, but his words ring in your ears still: _fucking pathetic_. he’s talking to the boys, but all you register is his mouth moving. you feel as though you could lose grip of your consciousness any minute as the scene of blood flying from his lips appears in your mind. “...this’ll be a much more fair fight than fukawa against you two.” you hold onto his words in an attempt to stay within this moment.

the boy who had been punched already backs off and takes off towards the nurse’s office; the other boy steels himself with fists raised. mondo shakes his head as he steps forward fearlessly. you watch the way his muscles flex and pull taut as he pulls his fist back. the sickening crack of the boy’s nose is enough to elicit shivers from you. you feel absolutely sickened by this scene and you hear the droplets of blood hit the ground in a steady stream, like grotesque raindrops. the boy flees after the other one, and mondo turns to you.

          “you okay? they didn’t hurt ya, did they?” he asks, crouching down to examine you, but you turn away from his gaze. “hey, ya don’t need to be scared anymore!”

instead of gratitude, you hiss at him as you pick yourself up off the ground and run as far as you possibly can. all you know is that you want to put as much distance between you and him as is possible. pathetic rings in your ears as tears sting your eyes. _why do you need protecting? why did he protect you? why are you so pathetic pathetic pathetic?_

you forget about your fallen books.

 

.

 

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.

when you meet him again, his excuse is that he’s returning those books that you had left. your hands shake as you accept them, but you avoid eye contact. “th,thanks,” you mutter, and there is a depth in that utterance that he might pick up on, but you remain unsure. in response, he simply smiles and scratches the back of his head.

          “no problem, ya took off so fast that i didn’t even get to make sure you were okay,” he says, his hand falling; he wrings them in front of him now that they are empty.

          you tilt your head to the side to try to avoid his gaze; the bruise on your cheek has blossomed, staining your face an ugly color. _that’s nothing new_ , you think bitterly. “th,that didn’t concern y,you…” you tell him, pointedly looking away.

          he chuckles nervously, “i have to disagree. seeing them beat up on a girl like that… i kinda lost my head.” there’s an innocence about mondo that you can’t put into eloquent words because it is like smoke.

          “i d,didn’t need your h,help…” you are stubborn; you know that you deserved whatever punishment those boys had prepared for you, but mondo had put a stop to it. there are fractures of gratitude scattered throughout your body, but you can’t manage to piece it together to give it to him. instead you blindly believe that you deserved the abuse of those bullies. “if i n,needed someone, th,then, i would’ve s,said something…”

          “next ya are gonna tell me they were friends of yours,” he says, stepping aside to make sure not to trap you in this conversation. seeing this opening, you hurry away from him without even bothering to give him a second glance. you don’t owe him anything.

 

you keep telling yourself that.  
you don’t owe anyone anything.

 

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you notice the way that he keeps talking to you for the next several weeks; you try to avoid him, but it seems that he’s everywhere you don’t expect him to be. he’s not looking for you either, you realize, even though your paranoia hits you in waves. whenever he sees you, he smiles and waves with that innocence that you don’t quite understand yet, but you continue to ignore him.

it doesn’t concern you.  
you don’t owe him anything.

 

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          “i’m sorry,” he says one day.

your desks are settled near each other and have been since the beginning of the year, but you hadn’t paid any mind to that until recently. he hadn’t tried to talk to you at all… except for today. that apology weighs down on you as you sit there with your pencil poised over your paper.

 

      _for what?_ you want to ask, but instead you just stare at your desk intently.

          he sighs, “i shouldn’t have interfered with something like that when i didn’t know what was going on, but i couldn’t have lived with myself if they had hurt ya. you didn’t deserve any of that, plus they looked like fucking _animals_.” he quiets for a moment, then: “i can tell that ya really didn’t appreciate my help, so i want to say sorry, but i’m also not sorry, because i’m glad you’re safe.”

his confidence is an amazing thing; you think you admire it, but that admiration is buried beneath your skin and can only be found deep within your chest. it takes you a moment, but hesitantly you peer over at him: quickly. he catches your gaze and smiles at you encouragingly. he is irritating and you grind your teeth together as you wish to be anywhere else but here. even back with those boys would be better than this excruciating conversation.

he’s wasn’t wrong to protect you, but you wish he was.

          “i a,appreciate th,that,” you say, but you don’t know what else to say. heat floods your cheeks as you realize that you are absolutely embarrassed by this topic. you are not used to people apologizing for upsetting you, but this apology just seems silly.  

 _pathetic_.  
both of you move on.

 

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          “i didn’t think ya were the sukeban type,” mondo laughs when he catches sight of you approaching him. “you’re skirt ain’t killing that vibe, plus if ya took those braids out then i’m sure you’d have the look down.” his laughter should annoy you, but you simply pull a face.

it has taken a month for you to accept his invitation for dinner; it is back at his place with daiya, so you are not as anxious as you should be, but now, as you stare down his motorbike, you are filled with dread and panic.

          “i’m n,not riding that th,thing…” you say as your nose flares in discontent, “...th,that _deathtrap_.”

you had agreed to try to be friends. unearthing this strange admiration you have for his confidence and strength, you discovered it would be best if you got along with him… if you tried to see the world through his eyes. it may even help you in the long run.

you are still weary of him and  this blossoming friendship; you don’t know how much you trust him, or if you trust him at all, but he gives you warm smiles and treats you like a girl and not one of his biker gang members, so you do have a softness for him.

          “ya don’t have to ride it. i’m waiting for takemichi to grab it while i walk ya there. i knew you weren’t gonna go along with that,” he laughs and you would think he is laughing at you, except he is walking alongside of you and keeping pace. none of this feels forced or awkward even though it should feel that way. “and here i thought ya were turning into a delinquent.”

          “wh,what kind of d,delinquent doesn’t r,ride a motorbike?” you slyly say, eyes quickly glancing over to him and watching as he laughs again, heartily.

and you don’t owe him anything,  
and you never have.  


 


End file.
